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Arma 3 Delayed! But Here are New Screenshots, and You'll Get to Play a "Community Alpha" in June

Arma 3 will be a little late to your ultra-realistic military shooter
party. Project Lead Daniel Musil cites extra bug-squashing and polish
(hooray!) as reasons for the delay of unspecified length (boo!) - I'd
guess it'll be 2013 before the full thing comes out. But on the bright
side, we won't have to wait that long to mess around with it: Musil
says that you'll get your chance with a playable "Community Alpha"
version that'll hit soon after E3 (in early June).

"The Community Alpha will be quite limited in terms of the assets it
includes, with the goal of providing enough content to experiment with
the brand new bits of gameplay and technology," Musil says in a blog post. That
"quite limited" part is kind of a bummer, but part of the goal of this
release is to give modders a head start on getting insane stuff like Santa's sleigh ready for us to
play with by the time the full game comes out.

Musil also gives a few updates on Arma's progress, highlighting DirectX
10/11, new rag-doll animations, and a UI redesign focused on improved
usability (thank jeebus - the awful UI is one of Arma 2's biggest
problems). Delays are always sad news, but I'd much rather play a tardy
but awesome game than a prompt but broken one that doesn't live up to
its potential. Take all the time you need, Bohemia! Just don't let us
down.